Media Release – Abusing Canada’s Generosity and Ignoring Genuine Refugees:: An Analysis of Current and Still-needed Reforms to Canada’s Refugee and Immigration System

Winnipeg: The Frontier Centre for Public Policy today released Abusing Canada’s Generosity and Ignoring Genuine Refugees: An Analysis of Current and Still-needed Reforms to Canada’s Refugee and Immigration System. The report is written by James Bissett, a former Canadian Ambassador who served as Executive Director of the Canadian Immigration Service from 1985 to 1990 and sits on the advisory Board of the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform. Bissett analysis the many troubles with Canada’s asylum system and traces a history of inefficiency and paralysis that has spent billions providing services to the wrong people, as well as encouraging human smuggling and abusing our immigration programme.

“Canada has become the country of choice for human smuggling because the smugglers are able to guarantee that the people smuggled in will be allowed entry,” writes Bissett.

“One of the key weaknesses of our asylum system is that it cannot quickly distinguish between those who need protection from genuine persecution and those who are intent on abusing the system by avoiding having to meet normal immigration rules. As a result, the process is bogged down by frivolous and obviously unfounded claims.”

Bissett recounts a history of stagnation and deterioration in the asylum system, as politicians have surrendered policy formulation to a powerful refugee lobby that profits from maintaining a wide open asylum system. The system has been out of step with all of the other asylum-granting countries that long ago learned to screen out phony asylum claims. Most Canadian politicians and much of the media have been complicit in a charade that has cost the taxpayer billions of dollars. Ultimately, it will take a major international effort to bring concerted solutions to the global refugee problem.

Specifically, Bissett looks at how the present system:

is the result of politicians of all parties bowing to the demands of the refugee lobby.

is not helping those real refugees living in dreadful conditions in camps around the world.

is out of step with practices in other industrialised states such as the European Union.

is exorbitantly expensive and helps the wrong people.

is encouraging human smuggling.

is undermining state security.

is damaging relationships with friends and allies.

Download a copy of Abusing Canada’s Generosity and Ignoring Genuine Refugees: An Analysis of Current and Still-needed Reforms to Canada’s Refugee and Immigration Systemhere.

For more information and to arrange an interview with the study’s author, media should contact: